Abstract [en]

My thought behind the investigation is that grading and different forms of grading are questions that teachers have to deal with in their profession, from a power and pupil perspective. As a teacher you have the power to open respectively close doors for pupils, and then grades becomes decisive for the pupils further education. My issues are: What do media pupils tell about their experiences of being graded? How do media pupils describe the impact of the grading on their self image? My informants are studying at 3rd grade at a media orientation on an esthetical program. With them I do interviews where they reflect on being graded in media esthetical subjects. This essay uses ethnographical methods based on interviews and discourse as an analytical tool and theory. My aim is to understand how grading impacts on my informants’ life and how it finally works in a bigger social context. The study showed that the teachers have an influential role when it comes to how the pupils feel after the grading situation. The result in the investigation shows that it is difficult to define what a "fair grading" really implies and that it is individual how the pupil understands the communication with the teacher. In that way you can see that the communication between the teacher and the pupil is the core in how the grading is being brought up. It demands professionally skilled teachers that are clear with the requirements of knowledge and that conversations with the pupils are being held in a constructive way. To sum up, this calls for research within this subject and resources on a political level. My interpretation is a prolongation of my ethnographical investigation. There the pupils studying on different esthetical orientations – music, media, florist, musical and theatre, are discussing with each other about what they think about being graded in an esthetical subject and generally what they think about grading. This resulted in a number of portrait photographs later being exhibited on the spring exhibition at Konstfack in 2014.